he needed to try something different. He could strike the dog, hopefully frightening it away, or lure it close enough to gain physical control. Bryant chose the latter, and as he reflected, he didn’t have a choice.
Bryant pulled out some MRE (meals ready to eat) leftovers and offered that to the dog. Soon the dog was sitting by his side. The urgency to get the mongrel to lie by his side and under the cover of his sniper nest was high. Bryant tried to train the dog quickly by offering small amounts of food when the dog settled in near Bryant’s feet, but remained nervous. Fortunately, this survivor of Afghanistan’s rugged landscape was a quick learner, and soon he was lying at Bryant’s side with his dark-brown eyes staring hopefully at its new friend and savior.
After several minutes of food training, Bryant was able to return his attention to the mission. Bryant’s mind flashed forward to the many times Nick followed him across the plateaus of Afghanistan and even enjoyed a helicopter ride back to base camp. He mentally smiled when remembering how he had to cajole the copter crew to let the dog ride with him.
Then Bryant’s mind turned dark. He could see his team member Casey Lawrence. The vision was of Lawrence watching Nick snuggle up against his gear and nuzzle his bag where he kept his food rations. Without saying anything, Lawrence kicked at Nick and struck him in the ribs with his boot. Nick yelped and jumped away. Bryant had yelled at Lawrence, but he was too far away to intervene. Lawrence kicked again at Nick. This time, Nick was ready, and he nipped at Lawrence’s ankle. The bite was restrained, but Lawrence yelled more from surprise than pain. Bryant suppressed a laugh, but his mood quickly changed when he heard Lawrence swear and saw him draw his pistol, taking aim at Nick.
The blast from Lawrence’s weapon seemed to flash like a bomb in Bryant’s brain. Shock, followed by intense anger, exploded in him before he had time to think. He charged at Lawrence immediately, and they engaged in a fight, yelling obscenities at each other. Bryant’s initial tackle slammed Lawrence into the Afghan dust. Immediately, Bryant’s anger seemed to push the advantage toward him; and Lawrence, in desperation, pulled a Ka-Bar knife and waved it at Bryant defensively. Bryant stopped his attack instantly, and his mind became cold and incisive. The anger-driven adrenaline took a back seat, and Bryant’s skills and training took over his thought process briefly. Then Lawrence lunged. He slashed back and forth twice. On the third pass, Bryant twisted to his left and caught Lawrence by the arm. With the Krav Maga training almost second nature, Bryant pushed downward and twisted Lawrence’s wrist. His knife was facing his own stomach. Lawrence immediately dropped his knife. Bryant thrusted upward with his knee hitting Lawrence in his jaw and sending him sprawling backward on to the ground.
By then, a few other SEAL team members had gathered around the fight. Some yelling while others stared in disbelief and concern. Lawrence was not well liked and had little support in the crowd, but when Bryant straddled Lawrence and began to pummel him, a few jumped in to stop the beating. Finally, Bryant was pulled off Lawrence, and firm hands held him from his objective, which seemed to be to kill him. Lawrence’s prostrate form was carefully pulled away from the fight scene, and a medic was called to attend to his wounds. It was soon recognized that he was unable to speak.
Bryant suddenly realized he had been mentally absent from the interrogation room. He looked at Stevens and sensed that the “shrink” had been staring at him intently. Bryant shut his affect down immediately, but it was too late.
“You were reliving the fight, weren’t you?” Stevens probed.
It was more of a statement than a question, but Bryant realized that a response was expected. He pursed his lips and nodded his head slightly.
Stevens sat back and sighed. He knew that the ability to delve deeper into the mind of Bryant would be almost impossible without a lot of time, and even then, he might have little success. He had little time.
Captain Bryce Ericson had requested, or more accurately, demanded that Stevens wrap up the evaluation by next week. Stevens knew he could not do that with Bryant’s limited statements. So far, Bryant had neither defended himself nor commented on Lawrence. He had not even expressed any remorse. The latter disturbed Stevens the most.
Stevens intuitively decided to take an even more oblique approach. He knew from experience that an indirect line of questioning sometimes led to quicker and more accurate results.
“Where did you grow up, Bryant?” This was not a yes-or-no question, and it was not apparently tied to the incident. A back door, Stevens noted to himself.
With a brief hesitation and a puzzled look, Bryant responded, “Oregon, sir, Eastern Oregon.”
“Let’s drop the ‘sir’ stuff for the rest of the interview, Bryant.”
“Yes, sir—um, I mean okay.”
“Tell me a little bit about what growing up in Oregon, uh, Eastern Oregon was like.”
After an even longer hesitation, Bryant finally said, “Well, I don’t know what you want to know, but it was a good place to grow up. I had lots of hills, mountains, and canyons to explore, when I wasn’t working around the ranch.”
“You lived on a ranch?” Stevens probed.
“Yeah, I did,” Bryant replied.
“What was that like?”
Bryant could feel that he was letting his guard down. His mind conjured images of the ranch and the surrounding land north of Burns, a small town in Oregon. He turned over thoughts of his childhood, both good and bad, fun times and times he wished he could forget.
“We had cattle and a few horses and a couple of four-wheelers. It was hard work and fun at the same time.”
“Did you have brothers and sisters?” Stevens noted that Bryant’s head shifted backward, and his eyes seemed to open slightly.
Bryant acknowledged to himself that this was one of the hard times in his life. He had not expected it to come up in this meeting.
After a longer pause, Bryant said, “A half sister.”
“So one of her parents was not biologically related?”
“Yeah, I had a stepfather.”
“How old is your sister?”
Another long pause. Bryant and Stevens stared at each other. Then, “She’s dead.” Bryant took some morbid pleasure when Commander Stevens sat back in his chair with a startled expression on his face. But Bryant felt intense pain himself.
“Oh, sorry. I dislike being intrusive over something like this, but what happened to her?”
Telling the story would not be so easy. He began slowly, describing his half sister’s death in as little detail as possible. But the details slipped through.
Shawn Bryant had become very fond of his half sister. Ellie, nine years old, was seven years younger, but did her best to keep up with him. She frequently hung out nearby when he worked with the horses and would sometimes beg to ride behind him on a horse or a four-wheeler. Bryant seldom resisted her worried, plaintive expression and whiney yet charming persistence. Both his stepfather and mother were supportive of the relationship. That is, until the last four-wheeler ride.
It had been a typical, mostly sunny day with few lazy clouds drifting across the crisp blue skies, creating shadows on the tawny hillsides that made up most of the ranch landscape. Juniper, sage, and rabbitbrush dotted these hills and competed for the scarce water. Summer in Eastern Oregon was often hot and dry with the occasional thunderstorm that ripped through the parched land, sometimes leaving a wildfire in its wake.
Bryant remembered the ride with his half sister like it was yesterday. He recalled the joy of riding with the wind whipping through his hair and the sound of Ellie giggling or sometimes screaming with excitement. It all ended when he chose a trail that traveled through a few old-growth juniper. Bryant had gone this way many times before without a problem. He was traveling at a reasonable rate of speed, perhaps a little fast to give Ellie a thrill. But apparently, the sound of the four-wheeler had disturbed a herd of mule deer. Bryant did not see